For weeks before the Nov. 2 sElection, activists in Portland made calls for action for the day after, no matter what the results turned out to be. With the choice of Kerry or Bush offering no real choice, free-thinking Cascadians wanted to use Nov. 3 as an excuse re-focus on the real problems facing the world: capitalism, imperialism, the unsustainability of the aMErican lifestyle, etc. And that they did, on Nov. 3, turning out on the streets in the hundreds. Do these actions represent a mere flare-up of anger following the theft of the pResidency, or will they become the start of a new wave of creative resistance? Only time will tell...

From the open publishing newswire:
Friday night's (last night's) lecture by Thom Hartmann and Bob Fitrakis on the details of vote tampering in Ohio and its implications was great. Intelligent, well researched, engaged and well spoken speech from Fitrakis gave everyone the knowledge and determination we will need to address the serious problem of unverifiable votes and corruption in elections and its roots.

From the open publishing newswire:
Well, they brought it out again last night. The infamous ice cream truck. After herding people (with a fucking permit no less) to the deserted backwoods of town -- across from the federal building -- they hauled out their funky truck and demanded in a creepy stepford-like politeness that everyone leave. While the truck hovered above the crowd in the background, heavily armed riot cops brandished weapons at us in the foreground.

From the open publishing newswire:January 20th, Anti-Inauguration Day of Action Want to be involved in the action, but don't have a plan or group to work with? Come to the Sunday, January 9th organizing meeting for coordinated direct action and civil disobedience. 5:00pm at the Cascadia Rising Infoshop (1540 SE Clinton). This will be the only meeting of its sort so please attend or contact us.

How much longer are we going to just watch as Bush continues to crush civil liberties, increase corporate rule and destroy natural ecosystems? How much longer are we going to watch Bush continue his never-ending "war on terrorism" and attempt to criminalize abortion? How much worse does it have to get before we resist? [ Read More ]

From the open publishing newswire:
Today, the city council just agreed to send our police to protect a President that, not only did 3/4 of us Portlanders oppose in the last elections, but whose Secret Service has become infamous in the last four years for suppressing public dissent at any appearances of Administration VIPs.

Today I got a good lesson in how government works. By "emergency ordinance" (therefore exempting the item from public review and second reading by the council) the city authorized sending 20 PPB cops to DC to assist the Secret Service at the Presidential Inauguration. This is the same Secret Service under whose authority the PPB sent its officers to brutalize Portlanders protesting the same president's visit to our town in 2002, resulting in a third of a million dollar legal settlement against the city.

From the open publishing newswire:
Portland is planning to send 20 officers to be part of the "Presidential Inauguration Task Force (PITF)" who will be deputized as US Marshals and under the direction of the US Marshals, Metropolitan Police Department (Wash. DC cops), US Park Police and, you guessed it, the FBI.

The contract covers the dates of January 15 to January 21 and requires the City to cover the salary of the cops, including overtime. The Feds will cover the airfare, living expenses, and any expenses if the officers have to go to court (like to testify why they pepper sprayed babies in Washington DC).

I think that in a time of City budget crunch, when citizens are complaining there aren't enough police in their neighborhoods (even if that's not particularly a philosophy we agree with) and there are unsolved murders, when the cops themselves constantly complainm about being understaffed, and when a political battle over the Joint Terrorism Task Force just pushed its renewal off the agenda for the first time in 4 years, this is a very unwise move.

I'm sad to report that Chief Foxworth has already signed the agreement.

I hope other people can join me at City Council tomorrow, otherwise contact info is below for the new council.

Whether you're a progressive democrat, a green party activist, a secessionist, or an anarchist one thing should be clear: the Bush cadre is our greatest enemy. No hope for improving, changing, or eliminating the current system can exist as long as they hold power.

On January 20th people around the country and the planet will be organizing a day to fully manifest the ongoing and daily growing resistance to their global tyranny. Through both street protests and autonomous, decentralized direct action around Portland, let's mark the inauguration with a day that challenges of the supremacy of the Empire.

Let this day serve as a wake up to liberals, Democrats, and others opposing Bush: the time for escalating resistance is upon us. This day will not be a about a singular protest in the streets, but about creating a rallying cry for the long struggle ahead of us.

From the open publishing newswire:
Recently, I was involved in a project that required a visit to every Independent Media Center in the country. I learned of an enormous movement happening across the United States that literally astounded me. There are protests and marches in every major city in the country.

I looked for articles in my local newspaper and on TV.....and there was nothing. These stories are found only on our network of IMCs, and bless them, for they are all unpaid volunteers serving the people, and trying to get the truth out - at a time when, we now know, the truth is not an issue for the Major Media. For instance, did you hear that in Chicago there were demonstrations for a solid week after the Nov. 2 Election..........NO.

What follows is an incomplete compilation of stories on citizen unrest from around the country. Most of them have fallen off the Main News Column, but can still be accessed. Check each cities' IMC to read the full story.

From the open publishing newswire:
I like many other PDXers have noticed the flyers around town pinned to the local coffee shops bulletin boards, in the store front of local bike shops and strewn about other various places of community affiliation all gearing up for Today's "NOT MY PRESIDENT rally taking place 12:00pm at Pioneer Courthouse Square NOV 13th. S0o what happened?

'una' writes: The reason you did not see people at 12:45 is because we all talked and made a plan at 12:30 in the square, to leave in small groups and meet up again afterwards at 1pm at 2nd and Burnside. We left some people to tell latecomers the plan, but apparently that did not work out. The strategy worked pretty well and the cops did not arrive at Burrnside until about 40 minutes later when we had been blocking half of the intersection for 10 min. Pictures will hopefully appear here soon. There were about 60 0f us. I think we all agree that more planning is needed, I got a fair amount of contact info from people, hopefully everyone else is networking too. We were talking about the day after Thanksgiving (Buy Nothing Day) as a possiblity for the next large action.

From the open publishing newswire:
Sunday, November 14th at 7pm there will be a meeting at the Back2Back Cafe on 6th and E Burnside to begin planning for getting out to D.C. for the inauguration on January 20th.

We filled the streets the day after the election, and we need to keep the momentum going. On January 20th Bush will begin his second term in the city where he received only 9% of the vote. On that day we will be there with all the rage and frustration we displayed on November 3rd; but this time we will be more prepared.

From the open publishing newswire:
We held our signs high. We passed out flyers. We've marched in the streets. We've blocked traffic. We made noise and cried out against the war, against oppression. We went home with uplifted spirits, again preaching to the choir and irking passersby. We even went out and voted.

But the monster is still in office. There is to be four more years of absolute terror in the white house. Four more years behind a veneer of moral values and nationalism. We are fucking mad.

We need mass decentralized actions, fucking shit up at night. In every city, against, against military recruitment centers, against republican offices, against banks, against walmarts, and against - every component of the military industrial compex.

From the open publishing newswire:
Yesterday there was a post on this site called, "PDF about sElection fraud from portland indymedia stories to PRINT & DISTRIBUTE", at http://portland.indymedia.org/en/2004/11/302663.shtml. It contained an upload of a newsheet called "The WORD on the STreet" for people to print, copy and pass around. Taking stories from indymedia, it exposes the fraud of the stolen election.

Today I printed one up, took it downtown where a friend of mine let me use the copier in his office, and made over 400 copies. Then I walked around Pioneer Square passing them out. About half the people I approached took one, and of those, about half were really excited. It was easy to offer it to people. "Hey, you want 'The Word on the Street'?" I'd say. That was fun to say.

Anyway, I left a stack of 100 or so at the Red and Black Cafe (22nd & Division) for other people to go get some if they want, to pass out themselves. They're on the white lit table by the computers. Come and get 'em!

From the open publishing newswire:
We've been here since 11:30am, providing jail support for todays' noontime rally. There were three arrests today, two at the start of the rally at Pioneer Sq and one under the Burnside Bridge near Saturday market. It is now 8:30pm and all three arrestees have been released. We sent a team of people to the Justice Center downtown in order to meet, greet and drive people home if they need a ride. We are concerned about the health and wellness of one of the arrestees in particular and we've made arrangements for the arrestee to be looked at by a nurse. If anyone has video or photographs of today's event, please send copies to either Alan Graf with the NW Constitutional Rights Center and/or the GDC of the IWW. Anyone that witnessed the arrests from today, we really need eye witness accounts emailed to us at

From the open publishing newswire:
Alan Graf, head of The National Lawyers Guild chapter here in Portland Oregon, and The Northwest Constitutional Rights Center is sending a call out for video and photos documenting police using pepper spray to disperse protesters on November 3rd.

"If you have photographs and or videos of police using pepper spray to disperse protestors, Please contact me. I want to see them. We can use these photos and videotapes against the police in litigation. Good videos along with witness names and phone numbers WILL MAKE A DIFFERENCE."

"I am also interested in talking with witnesses and people who were sprayed and/or injured by pepper spraying or police brutality from yesterday's protest."